


Trying My Hardest To Explain

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Banter, Christmas, Episode: 2013 Xmas The Time of the Doctor, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2020-12-07 13:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20976500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: In the darkness before the dawn in a town called Christmas, Clara Oswald confronts the Time Lord who sent her away.





	Trying My Hardest To Explain

“Are you alright?” Clara asked softly. It was late now in the town known as Christmas, and she was curled up beside the flickering warmth of the fire, a blanket wrapped around her legs and her head resting on the Doctor’s shoulder. Through the worn tweed of his jacket, she could feel the sharpness of his clavicle against her cheek, and it seemed to her that he was even slighter than when she had first met him all those years before. Age had touched him, yes; such was the inevitability of the passage of time, but something else too; something far more profound, and she could see how it weighed him down with each breath he drew. The loss of thousands of people, some in his name and some by chance, was an almost-tangible burden he carried with him, and she wondered how it must feel, to watch entire populations live and die while you survived on and on, interminably, stricken with grief and struggling to uphold a legend you hardly believed in.

“I’m an old man,” the Doctor said quietly, his tone brisk, but she could hear the pain and sorrow behind each word. “I’m very far from being alright, Clara, but do you know what? That’s OK. This is how all things come to pass. This is how all things must end. And I’ve made my peace with that.”

“I haven’t.” 

“Well, you’re still young; of course you haven’t. You haven’t had to face old age yet.” 

“You were young, once. When I first met you, you were young.” 

The Doctor let out a low chuckle, settling his arm around her shoulders. His limb was feather-light, and she nuzzled closer to him, as though the reassuring comfort of a physical embrace might negate the frailty that was only too evident about his person. “Oh, Clara Oswald, don’t ever let a Time Lord’s face fool you. I might’ve seemed young, but I was almost old enough then to be your Messiah. And now? Now I’m even older, and I’m probably what could be described as ‘past it’, but that’s alright. I’ve done my duty.” 

“What about your duty to me?” 

“What duty?” he asked bluntly, and the words cut her like a knife, robbing her of breath and reducing her to a stunned silence. She had thought he cared; she had thought he felt a sense of responsibility towards her. Wasn’t that why he’d sent her away? Wasn’t that why he’d banished her, like any other foolish little human? Was it because he cared, or was it because he saw her as nothing more than that – breakable and silly and inconsequential? 

“I’m sorry,” he said at once, shaking his head and retracting his arm, placing his head in his hands and letting out a weary sigh. “That was… callous. Cold. Years of living in perpetual snow; it robs a person of his ability to be warm. Not that that’s an excuse, of course, I just… I’m sorry, Clara. My duty is to keep you safe, and I fulfilled it. It’s not my fault that through your own stubbornness, you leapt back into danger. I’ll send you home again, and then that’s my duty, fulfilled for the last time.” 

“Keeping me safe isn’t about keeping me physically safe,” Clara whispered, her eyes wet with tears as she shook her head, stupefied by his inability to understand what she was trying to convey, both with and without words. “Haven’t you thought about what it did to me, being sent away? Haven’t you thought about how it would feel, to know that you were dying, alone, thousands of miles and years away from me and from people who love you?” 

“The people of Christmas care for me; respect me.”

“But do they love you?” 

“I’m a figure of their legend,” the Doctor shrugged, the truth field necessitating his directness. “Take from that what you will.” 

“I know you might care for them, but it’s not… they don’t…”

“They don’t what?” 

“They’re mayflies to you, aren’t they? I saw you with the children earlier; you hardly know their names, and can hardly tell them apart. One youngster becomes another becomes another; they blend together and become one generic child whose name you can’t quite grasp. You shouldn’t be surrounded by mayflies as you die, you should be surrounded by someone who you know, and know well.” 

“By which you mean you, I suppose. And you’re… not a mayfly?” 

“You know me, Doctor,” she said softly, reaching for his hand and taking it in both of her own. The bones felt like twigs beneath the parchment of the skin, and a single tear slipped from her right eye, splashing onto the back of the Time Lord’s hand. If he noticed, he did not comment, and for that she was grateful. “You remember me.”

“How could I ever forget my Impossible Girl?” 

“Exactly,” she smiled sadly. “Won’t you let me stay with you?” 

“You don’t know how long it’s going to be,” he said, some of the old confidence creeping back into his tone. “You could be here for decades, and even if I programme the TARDIS to take you straight home, questions will be asked when you arrive home looking twenty years older than when you left.” 

“I could just… not go home.” 

“Don’t be absurd,” he half-snapped, and Clara started, taken aback by his tone. She wanted to drop his hand and move away, but there was something so vulnerable in his eyes that she knew that this snarl was only a defence mechanism. “You belong at home with the people you love.” 

“The people I l-” she began, then bit down on the words that threatened to escape her mouth. “I want to be here, with you. That matters more to me than trying to respect the wishes of my dad and my bloody stepmother.” 

“It shouldn’t.” 

“Well, it does,” her own anger boiled to the surface, white-hot and furious, as she snapped. “I’m not leaving you alone to die, and don’t try to tell me that it’s going to be decades. I know you; I know when you’re lying, and I know when you’re struggling. It’s not going to be decades, is it? You can’t lie to me, not under the truth field, so tell me. How long?”

The Doctor grappled with himself, visibly trying to stop the words escaping from his mouth. After a considerable battle, he blurted with absolute unwillingness: “Hours, perhaps. At most.” 

“Hours?” Clara looked aghast at the revelation, finding herself unable even to cry. “_Hours_?”

“Clara, I’m an old, tired man with one leg.” 

“You’re…” she frowned, her mouth twisting into a shy smile. “You what?” 

“Ah,” even in the darkness, she could tell he was blushing. “Did I… not mention that part?”

“The part where you only have one leg? No, you didn’t. I thought you were an alien.”

“I _am _an alien.”

“So, why didn’t you just grow a new one?” she teased, and this was better – this was almost how they used to be before. 

“What do you think I am, a worm?” he asked with great indignation. “A lizard?” 

“You might be.” 

“Well, I’m not.” 

“Well, where’s the fun in that?” Clara nudged him gently in the side, wary of injuring him. “How did you lose it?” 

“I didn’t lose it, I misplaced it.”

“What, so you just woke up one morning and what? It had walked off on its own in the night?”

“No, I was battling a Tsunami Snake and it… well, it was a casualty of the battle.” 

“How is that misplacing your leg, then?” 

“Because I know exactly where it _is _– or was – and that’s inside a Tsunami Snake. Which happens to be dead, and over the ridge, and very, very frozen in a glacier.”

“Right.” 

“I’ve got a wooden leg now,” he beamed with pride at the admission, patting it with his free hand. “Like a pirate.” 

“You’re enjoying this far too much, and you’ve digressed from the issue at hand.” 

“What issue?” 

“The issue of me staying with you,” Clara reminded him firmly. “And not letting you die alone.” 

“Are you going to change your mind any time soon?” 

“No.” 

“Well, then I suppose there’s no sense in arguing with you. You can stay, Clara.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it.” 

“No, really,” Clara pressed a kissed to their still-entwined hands. “Thank you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> In the book _Tales of Trenzalore_ it is confirmed the Eleventh Doctor only had one leg by the time he regenerated, for the reasons detailed above.


End file.
